Someone asked about resources which might give insight into how to explain all this to children.
Anyone have any ideas?
1. Have your children asked you about the situation at Bellevue?
2. Have you heard your children and their friends discussing it?
3. Have you discussed any of this with your children? If so, how did you explain it?
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18 comments:
Love and truth.
Love covers, restores, cares for, embraces even when wronged, builds up another, makes harmful things stop, and so on.
Truth (not to be confused with facts) is absolute, genuine and real.
To the level that children can consider and relate to the above I think this situation is a wonderful opportunity to help our little ones or perhaps older children learn and grow and generally be better prepared for a real world. You might say this is an opportunity to help them sample some meat in their milk diet.
Don't turn them loose in the butcher shop - you must regulate and guide them in their development lest they fall prey to the flesh and its ways.
Andrew
Filth?
"Mommy, why did that person say Pastor Gaines manages like Hitler?"
Yes, I'd say that's one example of filth--wouldn't you?
--Mike
I believe you must be referring to the comments on the Commercial Appeal poll which I have no control over. To my knowledge, you're the only one who's used that term on this site.
"I believe you must be referring to the comments on the Commercial Appeal poll which I have no control over. To my knowledge, you're the only one who's used that term on this site."
It was on the "old" BBC Open Forum, but it has since been deleted. Seems to happen a lot.
And obviously, I've only referred to it in quotations.
--Mike
memphismom02,
Violins? Tree house? Prayer chapel? Special offerings for the above? All news to me. Can you elaborate?
onlyamember wrote:
"They understand more than we give them credit. I heard some say last Wednesday night that if Steve would just have the meeting, this could all be over. And this was kids from both sides."
Out of the mouths of babes...
"Sides" is such an ugly word.
"You would think, if he loved our church like he says he does, he would have this meeting, just to put it to rest. You would think, with all the problems at his own church, he would want to stay 'home' and mend fences instead of going away so much. You would think... "
You would, wouldn't you?
I've wondered if he doesn't want to be away as much as possible to avoid facing the situation.
NASS
memphismom02 wrote: "It hasn't been promoted yet, but one mother called the church switchboard to ask if there is indeed going to be a Love Offering Sunday in Nov. this year."
What did they tell her?
Yes, I know. {sigh} I've had to resort to use of the word myself several times, if nothing else in the interest of brevity. And sometimes, unfortunately, it's been just the right word. Your meaning was clear and not offensive in the context in which it was used.
NASS
Question - not actually pertaining to BBC - but possibly could.
I need an answer for ANOTHER struggling church member from another struggling church - same issues as BBC has, except much worse - they have been fighting the same for 2+ years.
The questions is: When there is a vote in the membership, at what age are the children allowed to vote? My daughter, saved at 5, would have been able to prayerfully discern at age 12, however do I know if another 12 year old is voting just because they are a member and can vote, without counsel or discernment - how do we know if they are old enough to understand and are there church voting age requirements within our members. I guess since we have no by-laws, who knows?? But if you do, please let me know! Thanks!
When there is a vote in the membership, at what age are the children allowed to vote?
Depends.
Bylaws should spell this out.
If not spelled out in the bylaws then Roberts Rules allow any member in good standing to vote. It does not give an age cutoff.
If you don't think a baptised 7 year old should be allowed to vote then you need to amend the bylaws to reflect that.
I know from friends any baptised member at the recent Germantown Baptist bylaw vote was allowed to cast a ballot. No minimum age. Very few youngsters actually showed up and voted though so I am told.
bin,
THanks for your reply. I would think that most young children would vote the same as their parents, mainly because they have heard the "talk' at home. Regarding my question, the last vote at this sister church was 60-30. Out of the 60 nay votes for a new pastor, one of the children (age 12) said that he voted against him because he was old (43)and he did not have any good looking daughters.
This may be something we want to get into when and if we ever get by-laws.
jcsuitt,
Wouldn't reading all this "filth" be a sin, too?
bin wonderin wrote: "If not spelled out in the bylaws then Roberts Rules allow any member in good standing to vote. It does not give an age cutoff."
Well, since BBC's bylaws are almost 80 years old and would fit on one side of a cocktail napkin... I guess everyone gets to vote. Not that our votes mean much. Who's going to vote against the crowd in a stand up vote for anything? They probably wouldn't even notice you.
NBBCOF,
I am sure I agree with you! I believe that Steve Gaines must be counting on the fact that most folks would not stand up in the crowd - like this may someday come to a vote.
We will be very blessed if we come out with some legitimate by-laws. (One of the items in the Warren toolbox is to change the by-laws - it gives the elder a "legal" rule..and it wouldn't take much effort to change what we have now).
Something does keep bugging me, why would a smaller church in this city have 34 pages and we only have a scrap of barely legible paper? I know the story that has been told, but has any one checked with the state to see what, if anything has been filed?
Just wondering
Filth? I think not. Nothing like having a pastor who supposedly "cares" for his sheep go up to a sister church and declare "victory" over the vile, pagan adversaries of the gospel within his flock. (Yes, that was satirical.) See 1 Cor 16:9 - used in the sermon before the "informational" meeting and stated to have been used the following night by Dr. Gaines himself.
Same pastor declared that "all" of the allegations were debunked. Forgive me if my memory fails me, but I seem to remember that at least 3 of the 4 men at the "informational" meeting declared that they hadn't been to "that web site" and that they were giving information to rebut the "allegations" that they were told were on the web site.
So, in essence, they were responding to rumors about rumors. However, I fail to see how they know all the allegations were addressed when they state that they haven't been to the web site to find out what was there? The snow-making machine was working overtime that night.
I know Steve Gaines is a big man, but to call the fence in the now notorious fence incident "itty bitty" is deceptive bordering on just a plain old lie. When a fence is 4-4.5 feet high and you illustrate the height of that fence to the congregation by putting your hand down down about knee level and calling it "itty-bitty", that's not being truthful.
When you tell your congregation you can't preach on Wednesday nights because you've got to be a daddy the rest of the week, but can be scheduled to preach other places a few times a month (some of them out-of-town), how is that being forthright and honest? So you play the "evangelical trump card" - 'the children' - that will get you a standing ovation and let you get away with just about anything. Is someone else's flock more important than Bellevue's to SG? Is it wrong to find this "daddy" explanation as inconsistent with the facts?
Lastly, why would Bellevue ask at least one departing staff member to sign a non-disclosure agreement? I know one ex-staff member was asked to sign one, but refused. I suspect that if the truth be known, all of the recently departed staff were presented with one. What are they going to reveal? Secret church growth strategies? EE secrets? Since one of the core issues here is a lack of transparency, should we not be concerned when the church asks ex-employees to keep their mouth shut?
Trivial, you say? But these trivialities seem to keep piling up into a pattern of bad judgment. The more this drags on, the more I see the pastor as lacking wisdom, sound judgment and statesmanship. Sharpe, Manning, Saba, etc. get blasted for airing the church's dirty laundry on the internet, but SG is given a pass (as far as I know) about giving his account of events to a captive audience at another church.
And now we add Cary Vaughn as the latest staff departure. The list continues to grow, but, of course, EVERYTHING is fine and dandy in the Bellevue world except for the misguided notions of a "handful" of adversaries...yeah, right.
Whew...now that I've vented, I feel better!!!
Good reading about leadership if you are so inclined:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/leaders/newsletter/2006/cln60814.html
Sorry....link above didn't get posted completely. Here it is broken into two parts.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/leaders
/newsletter/2006/cln60814.html
xd9x19 wrote:
"Trivial, you say? But these trivialities seem to keep piling up into a pattern of bad judgment. The more this drags on, the more I see the pastor as lacking wisdom, sound judgment and statesmanship. Sharpe, Manning, Saba, etc. get blasted for airing the church's dirty laundry on the internet, but SG is given a pass (as far as I know) about giving his account of events to a captive audience at another church."
Well, that must have been cathartic! I think you made some good points. As for giving Steve Gaines a pass for his words to the Union City congregation, I and a lot of others haven't given him a pass at all. Of course, some people have. I don't understand it, but they have.
NASS
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